Passaic County’s Manchester Regional High
School District
To Join Interdistrict Public School Choice Program

Commissioner of Education William L. Librera today announced that the
Manchester Regional School District, located in the town of Haledon in
Passaic County, has been selected to participate in the Interdistrict
Public School Choice program, and will be accepting applications from
potential choice program students for the 2004-2005 school year.

Two applicants
were being considered in this round for acceptance into the program.
Dennis Township in Cape May County has withdrawn its application from
the current
round.

Manchester Regional High School District will offer a Technology Program
to incoming choice program students. The program will offer training
in the areas of Computer
Assisted Design (CAD) as well as Networking Technology and Oracle Internet training.
The school district plans to offer in the 2004-2005 school year three seats each
in grades nine and ten to choice students, increasing that number by one seat
per grade in each of the following two years of the program.

The Interdistrict
Public School Choice Program at Manchester Regional High School will
be open to public school students within a twenty mile radius of the
district.
The district anticipates receiving applications from students in the communities
of Hawthorne, Clifton, Wayne, Paterson, Passaic, Pompton Lakes and Lakeland Regional.

A small pilot program entering its fourth year, the school choice program
provides students with the option of attending a public school outside
their district
of residence without cost to their parents. The program is consistently benefiting
students, schools and communities where it has been implemented, confirmed by
three consecutive positive annual reports on the program.

The Legislature adopted
the Interdistrict Public School Choice Program Act of 1999 as a pilot
program to see how effective public school choice would be in
enhancing the educational experiences of students.

The pilot was launched in
2000-01 by 10 districts. Thirteen districts enrolled 461 choice students
in 2002-03, up from 291 students participating in 2001-02.
The pilot program will expire in June 2005, pending reauthorization from the
Legislature.

"
The school choice program has proven effective in diversifying educational opportunities
for students and parents in the communities surrounding choice districts," said
Commissioner of Education William L. Librera. "Overall, the program has
been successful and there is increasing interest statewide in involving the districts
which have not yet implemented a public school choice program in their district.

"
While the school choice program has given some students and parents a public
school choice, there are many more that would like to have a similar choice," Commissioner
Librera said. “We are pleased to welcome the participation of the Passaic
County Manchester Regional School District and encourage interested students
from the communities surrounding area to consider application to the program.”

The
numbers of participating students have climbed steeply and steadily since
the program’s inception. Student participants doubled and then tripled
by the third year of the Interdistrict Public School Choice Pilot Program,
up from 94 students in the first year.

School districts participating in
the school choice program report that participation in the program has
helped them to improve or increase program
offerings,
reduce class size, lower the lower property tax burden, hire teachers
and purchase
technology equipment.